


9.8 m/s2 (the Throw From Your Window Your Record Collection remix)

by Veto_power_over_clocks



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Remix, Sad kids being kind of in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veto_power_over_clocks/pseuds/Veto_power_over_clocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they met, Hanji decided they'd be best friends forever, so Levi got stuck with her as they grew up. That involved more jumping through windows than what is considered healthy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tsuki no Talia](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Tsuki+no+Talia).
  * Inspired by [Head Trauma](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/27923) by Tsuki no Talia. 



> I read _Head Trauma_ and the idea of writing more about Levi, Hanji and windows got stuck in my head. Of course this ended up longer than planned.
> 
> Many thanks to [Tsuki no Talia](http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1761985/Tsuki-no-Talia) for letting me remix the original story.
> 
> Beta-read by the wonderful [Jessigaga13](http://www.fanfiction.net/u/3044295/).

Levi moved to the town of Maria two weeks before starting sixth grade, and he met Hanji Zoë the next day. Their first encounter was hostile and it quickly evolved into a fist fight which ended with Hanji panting on the floor, sporting a black eye, their short brown hair messy and full of leaves and dirt, and their brown eyes shining as they declared that Levi had given them the best fight of their life, which meant they should be best friends.

Levi had dismissed that statement with a scoff, because he had no use for a best friend who punched people just because they could, but the next day Hanji had shown up at his door with a map of the town marked with all the places they should explore. Levi spent the rest of his summer break running around, getting his knees so scraped and his clothes so dirty his mother almost had a heart attack. Levi didn't care much; those days with Hanji were some of the most fun he'd had in a long time. Hanji treated everything as if it were fascinating; their enthusiasm contagious, although Levi would have liked not to have to worry so much about what would happen if his new acquaintance fell down a tree and broke their head open like a coconut.

When school started and Levi found his not-friend during recess, he was going to tease them for playing with the girls when he realized that Hanji was, despite the short hair, the dirty clothes, the scraped knees, and the coarse language, a girl. It would be nice to say that their friendship survived their first trial that day, when Levi decided that, even if his classmates would tease him for spending his time with a fifth grade girl, he enjoyed his time with her too much to care (in order for it to be a trial, Levi would have needed to care about his classmates teasing him and about her gender). The truth was that Levi didn't really mind what his classmates thought as long as they didn't bother him much, and he also didn't care about whatever Hanji was, since he knew it wouldn't have any influence into how many times a week they went to get him and force him to go out, so he just registered that he had to address Hanji as a "she" and kept going with his life, which he'd already assumed would be Hanji-filled for as long as she needed someone willing to follow her on her dumb adventures. He was torn between wanting her to get tired of him soon, so he could go back to having a peaceful existence in which he didn't have to stop her from picking fights with upperclassmen, and wanting her to keep him around for years, so he'd never have to worry about boredom again.

It was around the middle of sixth grade that Levi understood that he wasn't some sort of disposable sidekick in Hanji's life, but a part of it. He'd been doing his homework when he heard something hit his window.

"O Levi, Levi! Wherefore art thou Levi?" He could sense the laughter in Hanji's voice and when he turned to look he saw, perched on the tree that grew next to his house, Hanji, grinning like a maniac, her brown hair sticking out in every direction as if she'd sprinted the ten blocks that separated their houses.

"What are you doing there?" he whispered when he opened the window, trying not to think about what could happen if she fell, or if his mother saw her.

"Move out, I'm jumping in!" she exclaimed in a soft voice, ignoring his question, before leaping. Levi instinctively reached to catch her, even if she'd been close enough that she didn't need it, and they both fell to the floor of Levi's room.

"What were you thinking? This is the second floor!" He barely kept panic out of his voice, but Hanji's eyes were shining in the way they did whenever she was right about something.

"I needed to see if I could get into your house from the tree. Now I can visit you anytime I want!"

"You already visit me whenever you want," he pointed out matter-of-factly, calming down.

"Yeah, but I have to ring the doorbell and greet your mom, and she always get anxious if I don't leave before seven. That's no fun! All the interesting things happen at night."

"Hanji, nothing happens in this town. The only interesting thing I've seen in the months I've been here is a dead squirrel," Levi said tensely. "There's no reason for you to be here late. And your parents will notice."

"They won't. I've been sneaking out for years to see the stars and they've never noticed. They won't start now!" Hanji shrugged, a flicker of resignation passing through her face before she looked carefree again.

"Still…"

"Don't worry, it'll be fine! And about the interesting things, they'll happen someday. They have to. And when they do, we won't have to worry about calling each other to discuss them, because we'll have been together in that moment."

"Exactly how often do you intend to come here?"

"Once a week? Or less, I don't know. Whenever I feel like, really."

Levi frowned, thinking, and accepted that the only way of talking Hanji out of visiting him at night would be by telling her why he didn't like the idea, and that probably only would make her want to visit him more often. He shrugged, feigning disinterest, as he wished Hanji would never be around to hear his mother cry.

"Why would you come here in the middle of the night?"

"Because we're friends."

Levi froze for a second, because Hanji showing excessive enthusiasm for things at first didn't mean she'd eventually lose some of that enthusiasm; instead it meant she'd try as hard as possible to make them part of her life, so she'd never have to miss them. He should have known that, when she declared they'd be best friends, she'd been serious.

"Don't make a mess when you come here, though," he managed to say, because he needed to say something, anything, to fight the awkward sensation that had settled on his chest. "Bring clean shoes."

"I can do that!"

True to her word, Hanji started showing up at his room approximately once a week, without following any pattern. Sometimes she'd show up on Monday, and the next week she wouldn't appear until Saturday; sometimes she'd climb into his room just half an hour after she'd left his house through the front door, or she wouldn't show up until three in the morning, and the amount of time she stayed could range from ten minutes to three hours. It got to a point where Levi would leave his window slightly open at night so he could hear her when she climbed, and he always let her know if he wouldn't be home one night (despite his tendency not to talk much, he still had a couple of friends in his class, and every now and then they'd get together to watch movies, or to camp in someone's backyard).

She always had a reason to visit him, from "I read this cool article about beetles" to "Have you ever thought about how tiny we are in the universe?" which was mainly an excuse to talk about whatever came to her mind. Levi half-listened to her rambling as he did something else, nodding and commenting when he felt it was appropriate, satisfaction filling him whenever Hanji said something with the intention to catch him distracted and he proved that, no Hanji, there was no reason for him to not listen to every word she said. Even if it was Levi who felt proud of himself when that happened, it was Hanji who smiled as if she'd just won the lottery.

"Hey, Levi, would you notice if I disappeared?"

Sometimes Hanji asked that, usually after reaching a point in which she couldn't think of anything else to say. Levi hated that question, hated that she felt the need to ask it, hated knowing that she was waiting for a reply he didn't know how to put into words or actions; so he learned to look for interesting articles in magazines and to keep them in a drawer in his desk, to pull one out as soon as Hanji went quiet and give it to her to read and analyze.

He ended up answering the question without prompting about a year after the nightly visits started, when it was he who showed up at Hanji's house unannounced. Levi had sneaked through his window and climbed down the tree, and then he had run to Hanji's house and knocked on the first floor window that belonged to her room.

"Levi, what are you doing here?" the girl had asked, rubbing her eyes, looking at the panting boy in front of her.

"My dad showed up," he said, with a tone that implied he didn't want to say anything else and which Hanji, of course, didn't notice.

"Oh. Fuck. Do you want to talk?" Hanji looked at him sadly, and Levi cursed himself for going to her house, when the exact thing he didn't want was pity.

"Shut up. Just let me in," he scoffed as he started passing through the window.

"It's okay, you know?" Hanji said quietly, looking at her feet. "I just thought you might want to talk. People are always saying that's good."

"Talking is overrated." Levi didn't look at her as he spoke, focusing on the pile of books next to Hanji's bed.

"Yes, it is." When Levi turned to look at Hanji, he found her giving him a knowing look that made him want to kick himself.

"Your parents have never noticed you sneaking out?" he said instead, because he was sure Hanji wouldn't approve of him hurting himself.

"They have their own problems."

"They're idiots. It's impossible not to notice when you aren't somewhere. It's always peaceful. And empty," he finished in a low voice that Hanji must have heard anyway, judging by the wide smile she was giving him. They spent the rest of the night looking at a book about natural wonders of the world that she'd bought with her savings the previous week.

Levi left before Hanji's parents woke up, and went back home. He snuck back in through the front door and found that his father hadn't left yet, and for once in as long as Levi could remember his parents agreed to yell about something that wasn't each other. They took Levi's copy of the front door's key and grounded him for a month, but the only thing Levi felt was relief that they hadn't realized he'd left through the window. He didn't want to imagine what would happen if they discovered how easy it was to climb down the tree. What if they cut it down? What would he do if Hanji couldn't return?

The next night, Hanji was at his window at 1 a.m.

"Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar," she whispered, smiling, as soon as she set foot into the house. Levi knew those words (they'd read them together just a month ago, when she got obsessed with dissecting the plans of every character in every Shakespeare play she could get her hands on, filling notebooks with charts and diagrams of each thing that had gone wrong and with ideas for how they could have been improved), and he tried to convince himself that his heart wasn't beating just a bit faster in anticipation for the last verse, "but never doubt my window's open for you too."

"Stop butchering the bard's words," Levi scoffed. "It's enough you went calling everyone in his play an idiot."

"But that part's pretty!"

"Hamlet played crazy, killed Ophelia's dad, and she killed herself. After going mad. Pick something more reassuring next time."

He wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed that Hanji had changed the words of the poem, but he was absolutely certain that he wasn't ready to deal with it yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta-read by [Jessigaga13](http://www.fanfiction.net/u/3044295/), who deserves everything nice in life for this.  
> Thanks to the people who commented in chapter one, you made me really happy.

Puberty wasn't kind to either of them. By the time she was sixteen Hanji's face had sharpened, her voice had deepened and she'd become too tall for her skinny frame and her small breasts that barely justified wearing a bra; she'd ended up with an androgynous appearance that wasn't helped by her short hair and preference for jeans and hoodies. Age might not have given her a stereotypically attractive figure, but Hanji didn't care what she looked like or what gender people thought her to be as long as she got to be comfortable. She wasn't going to complain. Levi, on the other hand, would have liked to complain a bit, since Hanji seemed to get taller every day while he got stuck at 1.60 meters, but he kept quiet because growing up had meant that he'd finally been allowed near his mother's piano.

It was an old thing that his mother rarely played, but which she religiously tuned and cleaned. He'd been fascinated by the instrument as a kid, watching his mother take care of it, waiting for the day she wouldn't rush to pull him away from it for fear that he wouldn't be as careful as she was. On his twelfth birthday she'd looked at his hands and his face before smiling, saying, "Yes, I think you could play." They'd sat together in front of it and she'd explained scales, notes, and the keys. When she saw he wasn't nodding off, she kept talking about how to maintain the piano. Finally, she'd taken a deep breath and played something for him.

For six months they spent two hours every day in front of the piano, to allow Levi to learn the position of the keys and familiarize himself with the basics. Levi liked the lessons for a variety of reasons, the first one being the change in his mother's attitude. In front of the piano, with her hands gliding over the keys, she looked younger and happier, small smiles that became wide when Levi showed he'd learnt what she'd taught him.

The second reason was the freedom Levi was allowed. He enjoyed playing with the keys, hitting them without trying to make a melody and writing down the combinations that sounded somewhat good.

The third reason was Sundays. On those days, he could spend the whole morning practicing, just him and his desire to improve.

The fourth reason, which he wasn't entirely sure was a reason by itself or just a part of the third one, was Hanji. When she found out why he wouldn't go out on Sunday mornings, she started showing up at his door early, a book, a pillow and a blanket in her arms, so she could sit on the floor next to him and listen to him practice ("It's not a normal morning without you," she'd said matter-of-factly when he'd asked her about it).

When Levi's mother ran out of things to teach him, she started paying for classes.

"You'll have to play for me someday," his mother had said, smiling at her son, after he'd returned from his first lesson (Levi saved that moment in his mind next to the time Hanji declared he'd never be able to get rid of her).

There was a slight modification of the Sunday routine afterwards. Hanji kept going to his house, but instead of one book she carried two, and she and Levi's mother sat next to each other on the blanket and read as Levi played.

While adolescence gave Levi a routine and something that actually interested him, it made Hanji go crazy. She had stopped picking fights at random by the time she was twelve, but she had apparently decided to compensate for the lack of violence in her life by pouring all her extra energy into learning and getting herself a part-time job of which every cent went towards paying for books. Staying up late to read ended up killing her eyesight, forcing her to wear glasses she often forgot or dropped. She also started going to Levi's house at night more often, sometimes without an excuse, which lead to him buying a sleeping bag and letting her sleep on the floor of his room whenever she wanted (he also bought a doormat to put under his window, he was tired of cleaning the dirt her shoes brought inside). On summer nights, when he left the window completely open for her, he often woke up to her entering the room and telling him not to mind her as she set the sleeping bag next to his bed. He only went back to sleep once she stopped moving and her breathing became deep and even.

Levi rarely went to Hanji's house at night, and when he did it was usually because she demanded it. At some point he'd reached the conclusion that, no matter what he did, he'd probably spend the rest of his life in Maria, and he stopped caring about school (but he kept going to his piano lessons and practicing with methodic dedication, allowing himself to smirk when he felt he improved before reminding himself that he still had a long way to go). The only thing that kept him from having to repeat a year was Hanji keeping tabs on when he skipped class, forcing him to attend the minimum necessary, calling him every day to tell him to do his homework, and forcing him to go to her house two nights before each test he had so she could make sure he was studying for them. They often fought about it, about how Hanji kept pushing even when he thought it was useless, about how she claimed he'd given up without even trying. It was always Levi who stopped arguing first, even if he hated the satisfied grin on Hanji's face.

"I don't understand why you bother," Levi muttered one night, reading about History at Hanji's desk. "No matter how much you make me study, I'll end up working some shitty job in this fucking town."

Hanji had been lying on her bed, reading, but at his words she left her book next to her and sat to glare at him with a seriousness he hadn't seen in her since the day they'd met, when she'd punched him just because she thought he was looking at her ugly. Just like that day, he wasn't intimidated.

"You won't. You're getting into college and leaving this town. I'll follow you the next year."

"Maybe in the short run, but in the end we'll be here anyway. Every person that leaves comes back, even if it takes them years. Just look at my mom, she was away for fifteen whole years."

"Your mom had bad luck. We won't be like her."

"Of course not. I can't get pregnant, and you don't believe in marriage. We're safe from her mistakes."

"Levi, just because your parents get along like shit it doesn't mean that their marriage was a mistake. You came out of it."

"And I'll be just another inhabitant of this town. I'll spend the rest of my life playing piano for you on Sunday mornings. Great future." Levi shrugged and focused on his textbook, not caring about Hanji's expression. She looked like she wanted to scream.

"Is that really so bad?"

He paused his reading, not daring to see her face. He'd expected an angry retort, or maybe a sarcastic one, but Hanji's voice had been weak and hurt, full of fear and sadness, a glimpse of the things they never talked about but knew about each other anyway. He was torn between staring at his book and going to Hanji's side, even if he had no idea what he could do; he wasn't comfortable with the idea of hugging her, and holding her hand seemed distant and useless, but thinking of simply sitting next to her without touching her filled him with loneliness.

"Sorry," he said, but it only made Hanji lower her head so he couldn't see her face.

"I'd be fine with that future," she muttered. "You're enough, Levi. With you, I could spend my life in this town."

Levi didn't know how to reply or how to take her words. He settled for something that could have been humorous in a different situation.

"You'd die of boredom first."

"No. You love me, so you'd buy me books to keep me alive."

"I love you?" Levi said, eyebrow raised, voice disbelieving, thoughts made into a mess because it's just a bit true.

"Don't pretend you don't, we're best friends. It's fine, I love you too."

"You've said it a few times. It still doesn't explain why I'd have to buy you books."

"Because I'd have no money. I'd spend it all in books too, to stay entertained." Her words had more life in them, Levi could hear the amusement she was trying to keep hidden.

"And what would you eat?"

"You'd feed me."

"So you'd stay in this town as long as I agreed to feed you and buy you books?"

"Yes."

"With the lame job I'll get around here, how do you expect me to do that?"

"That's why we have to get into college and leave. We can have nice jobs that don't kill our brains, in a city where we don't get bored."

"You can do that. I'll stay here."

"Levi, we're smart kids. You'll leave too."

"Why are you so sure that I want to leave?"

"Because," Hanji sang, dragging the vowels, raising her head to show her playful grin, "you absolutely hate being bothered. In this town, everyone will know who you are and expect you to do something. Out there? You could live holed up in an apartment and no one would care. You can do whatever you want."

"And how's you expecting me to go to college different from people in this town expecting something from me?"

"Simple: if, once you have a career, you tell me you don't give a fuck about the nice places, I'll leave you alone and visit them by myself. I'll send you postcards, and you won't see me again unless you want to. By then you'll be capable of taking care of yourself, so you won't have to return here. It's perfect!"

"What are the 'nice places'?"

"Oh, that." Hanji smiled sheepishly. "It's my name for the places I want to see. Like the Atacama Desert." Levi simply looked at her, waiting for her to continue. "Remember that book we looked at the first night you came over? There was a picture of the night sky that was took there, and it was so different from the sky I see from here that I… well, I thought that any place where stars like that could be seen had to be nice in a way other places aren't. Like… they're so nice, that nothing bad happens in them. I thought it'd be great to find them all."

"That makes no sense."

"Shhhhh, you're ruining it."

"And where are the nice places?" he said after a pause.

"Out there, everywhere. Out of here, anyway."

"…maybe it'd be good to see them."

The smile she gave him made him leave the chair and sit next to her, still holding the textbook, unsure of what to say. She smiled softly before wrapping her arms around his arms and torso and pressing her head against his chest, a gesture that Levi wasn't sure was a hug or a restraining maneuver to keep him from trying to get away before she felt ready to let go.

He could have easily pushed her away, but as he looked at the top of Hanji's head he relaxed and found the words he should have said a few minutes ago.

"You're enough too."

Hanji slowly raised her face to look at him, loosening her hold on him. Just as Levi was thanking the greater powers that she smelled like toothpaste instead of whatever she'd had for dinner, she leaned in and any ability to think coherently left him, his mind suddenly aware of the fact that she was wrapped around him, that she was warm and smelled like mint and a bit like dust because she'd forgotten to wash her hair again, that her eyes were bright, that her pajama top was thinner than he remembered and that it was the same one she'd been wearing for years, an old shirt with some holes that would never make anyone attractive, but which still made his heart beat faster when she wore it, because it tended to slip and show one of her shoulders. He usually hated that shirt with passion, the way it reminded him that even when he'd thought Hanji was a boy he'd been willing to follow her through the entire town, but in that instant he hated it for forcing him to be aware that he wouldn't be feeling terrified if anyone else had been so close to him, because he'd never considered Hanji in terms of gender, but instead it had been in terms of how much he didn't want to lose her.

He noticed he'd been holding his breath when Hanji kissed his cheek and he let the air out of his lungs. She finally pulled away from him and put the textbook he'd been holding on his lap.

"You still have that test. Study," she ordered as she settled next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.

He put an arm around her waist and kept it there as he read, trying not to think about how the hem of her shirt went up a bit when she breathed in.

Since that moment, all their interactions were full of a subtle but persistent tension, something they hadn't been aware of before but which, looking back, had hung around them for so long they'd mistook it for part of their dynamic. It was in the way Hanji smiled more brightly at him and he always wanted to smile back; in the way she'd hug him from behind and rest her head on top of his whenever they were waiting somewhere and he wouldn't have the courage (nor the heart) to tell her to go away, no matter what his brain told him, because he could feel the warmth of her body through their clothes; in how every Sunday he'd catch himself practicing certain melodies because he guessed she'd like them, and sometimes he'd raise his eyes from the piano to find her looking at him with a nostalgic look. Being aware of the tension left Levi unable to come up with a single course of action that wouldn't make him hate himself, or which didn't scare him more than the uncertainty.

They hadn't changed anything about what they did, she still went to his house every Sunday and randomly at night, he still went to hers to study, they still argued over the usefulness of trying to go to college far from the town, but everything was charged with the weight of the things they hadn't said that night and with the meaning of what they'd managed to communicate, and instead of letting those words out they said everything else, even that which they didn't believe, anything to break the possibility of there being anything more than friendship between them.

"Just stop it," Levi said during one of the forced study sessions, pushing the book away from him, exasperated, tired and angry.

"Stop what?" Hanji asked, her voice defensive, pushing the book back towards Levi.

"This whole 'Levi has to go to college' thing. It's enough."

"You don't want to leave?"

"I want you to stop sticking your nose where you weren't invited." Levi's voice was emotionless.

"I'm worried."

"And I'm tired. I don't need it. I don't need your constant supervision, I don't need you pushing me and bothering me."

"If you had anything similar to willpower I wouldn't have to do it!" Hanji exclaimed, her hands curling into fists.

"You think I'd do nothing if I cared? I don't give a fuck what you think I should be doing. I'm tired of following you around all the time, of being forced to do all this useless shit," he pointed at the textbooks on the desk as he spoke, "just because you think it's a good idea. The world won't accommodate to your views. If you think you can go out and never come back, fine, but don't expect me to go out there with you just because you need a babysitter."

"We're friends, you asshole. You're the one who needs someone to take care of you, or you'd just lie on a ditch and wait to die. I'm fucking tired of making sure you actually do something."

"Then stop trying and make my life easier."

"If that's what you want, fine. Stay in this fucking town forever, waste your brain selling door-to-door or something. You'll finally be a problem only to yourself!"

There was silence as her last words settled over them. Levi stood up and grabbed his things.

"Shit. No… Levi, I…"

"I'm leaving. You don't need me to be your problem anymore," Levi interrupted her attempts to apologize, his face cold.

"Levi, wait!" Hanji said, standing in front of the window, blocking his way. "I didn't mean that. You're not a problem. I wouldn't hang out with you if you were. I've been tense lately and…"

"Hanji, let me leave."

"Levi, don't be a kid. I'm being sincere." Her face was so earnest that Levi wanted to apologize with the same intensity with which he wanted to get as far away from her as possible.

"Hanji, let me leave or I'll start making noise. I'm sure even your parents will notice that you're not alone in this room."

"Fuck you," she muttered as she moved out of his way, looking shocked, angry and hurt.

After that, they stopped talking. It was a matter of principles, really, because he could come up with at least three worse fights they'd had, but the truth was that he didn't feel strong enough to hang around Hanji when he could perfectly remember how it had been to keep his arm around her waist, but couldn't remember how things had been between them before that. He didn't know why she didn't try to talk to him either, but he felt relieved. He put the sleeping bag and the doormat in a bag in his closet, and only gave vague answers when his friends asked why Hanji didn't hang out with them anymore.

He passed eleventh grade with the minimum necessary, and he only bothered because he didn't want to end up in the same grade as Hanji.

The thing was that even if they weren't close he remained aware of her. He noticed that she was letting her hair grow, that she'd started wearing skirts and dresses more often, that her grades remained the best of her class. He heard she'd started dating one of his classmates, and he felt like an idiot for getting angry after thinking that her boyfriend probably saw her as a girl first before seeing her as Hanji, he hated himself for wanting to hit something when he saw them kissing, her arms wrapped around the guy's neck and his hands on her hips.

When her birthday arrived, habit was stronger than the situation, so Levi found himself leaving the bookshop with a neatly wrapped book about bugs. He lost his courage on his way to her house, but he kept going until he reached it, and left the present in her mailbox. He wasn't sure she'd received it until his birthday arrived, when he found a package on his doorstep. Inside was a monstrosity of a yellow mug, which showed Grumpy from the Disney version of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves".

They didn't say anything about the gifts.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this chapter was difficult. I wrote four drafts before settling for this one.
> 
> I am so sorry for the delay. Sorry enough that I'm posting from my cellphone in class.
> 
> Many thanks to my beta.

Around the end of twelfth grade, Levi found some sense in a cupboard.

He was preparing dinner on a Friday afternoon when he came across the monstrosity of a mug Hanji had given him for his birthday. Seeing it again after so long didn't do anything to improve his opinion on it, since it remained brightly yellow (highlighter yellow, to be precise. Levi's eyes hurt if he looked at it for more than three seconds), and he couldn't pretend he didn't understand why the character printed on the side was Grumpy from Disney's "Snow White". For someone with a fascination for chemistry and physics, Hanji's sense of humor could be extremely simple sometimes.

The order of the thoughts struck Levi as wrong, since the first thing on his mind upon seeing the gift hadn't been about Hanji, as per usual, but about the mug itself. He noticed that he hadn't spared Hanji a single thought the whole day, and it was already 5:30 p.m., and that thinking about her didn't make him feel exasperated, or angry, or sad, he was simply acknowledging her existence without letting it affect him.

He should have felt relieved and pleased, ecstatic at realizing that he'd lived long enough without Hanji not to care about her, that he hadn't gotten bored, that he was fine and she probably was too, that he'd never really needed her, as he'd assumed for so long.

Hesitantly, he reached for the mug, left it on top of the kitchen table and went back to cooking. When dinner was ready, he sat in front of the mug and stared at it, and that was how his mother found him when she arrived at seven thirty: glaring at a cup as if it was his mortal enemy.

"Are you okay?" she said.

"Yeah… yeah, I am. Just tired." He tore his eyes away from the offending object and faced his mother's worried expression. "Really."

She didn't comment, but she did give a meaningful look to the mug before starting to help him serve dinner. After they'd eaten and cleaned, Levi grabbed the mug and looked it over, wondering if he'd feel anything if he smashed it against the floor, if it'd cause much damage if he threw it against the wall instead, if he'd manage to break it if he simply let it fall, but he reached the conclusion that doing any of that would only serve to worry his mother, so he settled for preparing tea in it and taking it to his room.

He sat on his desk chair and leaned back, slowly sipping the beverage as he tried to pinpoint the exact moment he'd stopped caring about Hanji. He'd gotten so used to her being a constant presence in his mind that he'd stopped paying attention to her. He'd moved on, he was finally free to look back at his relationship with Hanji without emotions in the way.

He saw his mistakes, every gesture he hadn't made, every word he hadn't said and those he shouldn't have. It was infuriating, and it reminded him of Hanji's Shakespeare obsession, when she yelled at Romeo and Juliet and banged her head against the table at Hamlet's actions. He wondered if Hanji had been frustrated at him as well, if she'd moved on too after realizing that he wouldn't apologize.

He finished the tea and examined the mug attentively. He could imagine Hanji seeing it in a shop, turning it over and over in her hands, checking if it had any warnings, looking online for information on the paint that could have been used on it to make sure it wouldn't give him cancer, grinning despite herself as she put it in a box because it would be the best gift ever, and then her smile disappearing immediately as she remembered that she wouldn't be there to see his face when he opened the package.

How could Hanji become so irrelevant? She'd said they'd be best friends forever, and there he was, not feeling a single thing about her. He decided to hate her for it, because that was better than the indifference after missing her for so many months, after years of falling asleep talking to her on his head, after being so absolutely convinced that he and Hanji were supposed to be together in some way, in sync with each other even on the days when they couldn't manage to make themselves fit into the world.

Maybe, if he tried, he could actually make good on his decision and hate her. Or maybe, if he tried, he could remember what he used to feel about her. He wasn't sure what would be harder.

He tried to distract himself by watching some TV series he'd been meaning to catch up with, but by eleven he had to accept he wasn't paying any attention to what he was watching and that it was time to deal with things.

"Mom, I'm going out," he said, popping his head into his mother's room, where she was reading.

She looked at him from over the edge of the book, raised an eyebrow, and pointed at his hand.

"Are you taking that with you?"

Levi looked down to see that he was carrying the yellow mug. He couldn't remember grabbing it as he left the room.

"No. I was taking it to the kitchen."

"Really?" The woman raised the other eyebrow.

"I always take the mug I use to the kitchen," Levi said in a wary voice. His mother used to joke that he'd always been too neat, never giving her a chance to use 'clean your room' as a punishment when he misbehaved, so her pointing out that he was keeping his room tidy was a bit like pointing out that he breathed. He had a very clear idea of where she was trying to get to, but he wasn't going to make things easy.

"Yes, but you never use that one," she replied in a deceptively innocent tone.

He decided to mimic her and raise his eyebrows before turning around and walking away.

"Come back before midnight," she called after him.

"Got it."

"Tell her I said hi."

"…okay."

He left the house and started walking without paying any attention to his surroundings. It had been far too long since he'd taken that route, but his body still remembered it, still knew when to turn a corner, how quickly it had to move to take him to his destination in the shortest time possible without leaving him breathless.

To be completely honest with himself, he admitted that he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do once he reached Hanji's house (he was almost sure that "I don't give a fuck about you anymore, how dare you" wasn't a good conversation starter, and there was the risk that she'd take it as a war declaration instead of as an attempt to fix things), so when he got there he decided to just see what happened, and he knocked on her window; his hand still remembering the exact amount of strength needed to produce a sound loud enough to be heard by Hanji but not by her parents.

He waited, hearing movement inside the room and voices, and, okay, the window's opening, try to say what you're here for in a comprehensible manner…

"What the fuck?" was what came out instead, because the person in front of him wasn't Hanji, it was her boyfriend, shirtless and looking as confused as Levi.

"Uh… hi, Levi," the guy said.

"Hi, Jack," said Levi, his face becoming the perfect picture of bored disinterest, as if people showed up at their no-longer-friends' windows at 11:20 p.m. all the time. "Is Hanji there?"

"Yeah, she's… she should be back in a second and… what are you doing here?"

"I was in the area."

"Right…"

The seconds passed in an uncomfortable silence.

"Who are you talking to?" cut-in Hanji's voice from behind her boyfriend, who moved away with obvious relief on his face to let her see Levi. Her eyes widened and she crossed her arms in front of her chest, since she was wearing her boyfriend's t-shirt, too loose on her to leave much to imagination. Not that there was much to imagine, Levi noted, because she was still flat.

"What took you so long? Were you taking a shit?" Levi said as way of greeting.

"What are you doing here?" Her voice was defensive, but her posture made her look exhausted.

Levi looked at Jack, and then back at Hanji to give her a 'You can't expect me to talk now' look. Hanji pursed her lips in reply and nodded.

"I can come back some other day. My mom said 'hi'."

"Okay. Tell her hi from me too."

"Okay. See you later."

"See you."

"Bye, Levi," said Jack, looking slightly panicked. It was funny, considering that Levi and Hanji had stared at each other with completely expressionless faces during the whole exchange.

He started the walk back home at a slow pace, trying not to think much. He'd expected to be affected in some way, to feel jealous at least, but all he could think was that Hanji and her boyfriend seemed to be getting along well.

Back home, after passing by his mother's room to tell her he'd delivered her greeting and no, he didn't think Hanji would come by on Sunday, he sat on his bed and stared at the window, waiting for something to happen. It was childish of him, and probably too hopeful, but each minute that passed he felt more sure that Hanji would show up. He fell asleep waiting, only to be woken up by the sound of something hitting the glass. He opened his eyes to the sight of Hanji sitting on the tree, holding a pebble and taking aim.

"Why was your window closed? You should have known I'd come!" were Hanji's first words as soon as he opened the window and she lowered the hand that held the pebble.

Levi didn't fully understand the situation immediately, and when he did he was too sleepy to keep his surprise out of his face.

"You're… mad at me? Why are you mad at me?!"

"Because your window was closed!"

Levi composed himself and crossed his arms in front of his chest, glaring at Hanji.

"I didn't know you'd come."

"You should have. We never left a conversation unfinished."

"We did once."

"That time doesn't count."

"I think it does. We aren't friends now because of it."

"And that should stop me from finishing the first conversation we've had since then?"

"We never started a conversation."

"Yes, because you left before we could."

"Did you come all the way here just to argue? We could do that in the morning."

"I came here because you showed up uninvited at my house and then left without explaining why you were there. My boyfriend's very insecure, you know? The poor boy was fretting after you left."

"I noticed. Shouldn't you be with him, now?"

"He's left already. And I assumed you'd appreciate the chance to explain yourself."

Levi took a moment to look attentively at Hanji. Her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, the loose strands looked windswept, as if she'd run to his house, and she was breathing quickly. She was still wearing the t-shirt from earlier, plus jeans and sneakers, but no socks, something that made him cringe inwardly. She also looked ready to throw the pebble she was still holding at him.

Probably growing impatient, she huffed, "Move out, I'm jumping in."

Just as she'd done during the first year of their friendship, he unconsciously tried to catch her when she leaped, but he missed grabbing her hand by a milimeter when she miscalculated and fell to the ground.

"Shit!" Levi said, before launching himself after her without a second thought.

It wasn't his brightest idea, as the pain that jolted up his legs when he landed let him know, but at least he got to reach Hanji quickly.

"I think I lost my touch," she groaned from the spot where she'd fallen, without moving. "Fuck, my head hurts," she said as she reached to touch her forehead, but Levi stopped her.

"You've got a wound. Don't move."

"Do you think it's a concussion?"

"Hell if I know." He was trying to remember everything he might have heard about head injuries, and to keep calm despite his clenched stomach. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes."

"Okay, that's good."

"We think so, but we don't know. Maybe I'm understanding something completely different from what you're actually saying, and by sheer coincidence my words work as an acceptable reply to what you really said."

"…Let's question reality later. Can you move your feet and your arms?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now wait here while I get the car, I'm taking you to the hospital."

"I don't think I'm in any condition to walk away, Levi."

He wanted to reply, but he didn't think it'd be safe to make her wait for medical attention too long (who knew what kind of things could get into her wound in that time?), so he hurried back to his front door and rang the doorbell. When his mother opened the door and stared in surprise, he shrugged and entered without explaining anything.

"I gotta take the car, Hanji fell from the tree and she's bleeding in the yard." He sounded completely pissed off.

"Hanji's what?" The woman put a hand on her son's arm and forced him to look at her. He pointedly avoided her gaze by staring at the ground.

"I'll explain when I come back. She's fine. Conscious, and talkative and annoying, but I'm taking her anyway. Can you call her parents?"

"Levi, I'm going with you."

"Mom…"

"Don't you dare," she said, putting emphasis in each word, crossing her arms in front of her chest and giving him a serious look. "I'll call them from the hospital, but I'm not letting her go there alone. As far as I know, you don't count as a responsible adult figure."

Levi wanted to argue that, actually, Hanji's parents weren't responsible adult figures either, but that only proved that they actually needed her to go along with them, so they left the house together, his mother in her nightgown and slippers.

The ride to the hospital was short, and it would have been silent if Hanji hadn't been ordered to speak to make her remain conscious. She spat random facts, making Levi wish she'd remained quiet when she told them about the amount of germs that could be found in the average office desk (he made it a point to disinfect his room the next day).

Once at the hospital, Hanji was left in a room for observation and Levi was sent to keep her company while Hanji's parents were called. He awkwardly sat next to the bed and looked at the bandage on Hanji's head.

"I guess we can talk now," she said without looking at him, in a voice that sounded too disinterested to be honest. "What did you want to tell me?"

He wanted to explain everything to her, starting from the moment they'd locked eyes and she'd introduced herself by punching him, back when he'd been a kid and he'd thought he'd just met the most annoying boy in the whole world, but she probably knew all that already, so he skipped to the end.

"I don't love you," he said matter-of-factly, looking straight into her eyes.

She nodded, licked her lips and asked, "Since when?"

"I don't know. I found out today."

"Okay. That's good." She gave him a sad smile. "You see, I don't love you either."

"Oh." He felt strangely relieved to learn that, to find out that he and Hanji matched even when it came to stripping the other of their importance in their own lives. He didn't like the idea of Hanji caring about him when he didn't care about her, and then he noticed that she'd started mattering a bit again, at some point between her showing up at his house and him seeing her in the hospital bed. It felt like he'd gone back to being eleven years old, to having to discover the weird person who was looking at him as if he were the most curious thing in the area. "Do you love your boyfriend?"

"Yes."

"I see." It was his turn to nod and lick his lips, hoping that made him look like he was processing the information when that had actually been the reply he'd been expecting. "Good for you."

"I loved you more." She didn't look away from him as she said those words, so she got to see his nonplussed face.

He felt like laughing, or maybe like hitting something. Instead, he breathed deeply. "I fucked up, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did," Hanji said leaning her head back and closing her eyes. "But don't hoard the blame, I fucked up too."

"Yes, you did."

She grinned as she spoke. "What now?"

"I don't know. Can't we decide later? After I've slept a decent amount of hours and your head is fine?"

"Sure, we can. By the way, I still want you to go to college."

"We'll talk tomorrow."

"We could be roommates." Her grin grew wider.

"Hanji, we aren't friends."

"I told you once, didn't I? You can't get rid of me."

"We'll talk tomorrow."

"Okay. Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow."

Hanji turned on the TV, and they waited for her parents while watching re-runs of The Big Bang Theory, since they kept Hanji angry enough to not get sleepy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-betaed because I figured that 2 months had been long enough to wait for the edited chapter.  
> If you see any mistakes, please point them out.

It was on their second year of college that Levi noticed he was in love with Hanji. 

He’d been washing his yellow mug (which Hanji had forced him to take with him to college, and which she considered the symbol of their renewed friendship) when he’d thought he should get Hanji a matching one, since she’d probably love it and use it all the time, which might make the existence of his yellow mug actually bearable, and why…

… would… 

…that… 

…be?

Oh. Again.

It was only the maturity brought by college that stopped him from freezing on the spot by the revelation (actually, it was the constant lack of sleep and a dislike for drama, but he wanted to pretend otherwise), but instead let him react without more than a shrug and a disgruntled mental sigh, although the latter might have been because the source of his understanding had been the mug. He guessed that, if he ever married Hanji, she’d try to make the mug their best man or maid of honor, since no country would accept a marriage officiated by a piece of crockery as legal.

The thing was that, after all that happened since she’d fallen down the tree (including her breaking up with Jack, him getting a job during Hanji’s final year of highschool and picking a major, them finding an affordable place for them to stay in, the boys or girls they’d sometimes find themselves dating), being in love with Hanji was the most normal thing he’d had in his life for years, and he couldn’t find it in himself to panic or even feel remotely surprised. The feelings were there, familiar and awkward, just as they’d been for a good part of his life. They actually made things easier, he didn’t have to wonder why he disliked her dates, nor why he wanted to spend his free time listening to her ramble about “Science!”, nor why, if he tried, he might be able to list all of Hanji’s habits, from the kind of notebook she preferred (spiral, lined pages, hardcover, with as many pages as possible) to how long it took her to get into bed after deciding to do so (one hour and a half).

It was on their third year of college that he realized she could probably list all his habits as well. It was two in the morning; he was setting his things for the next day and Hanji entered their room carrying two steaming mugs, one of which she left next to him on his desk before going to sit cross-legged on his bed.

Back when they’d just become roommates, he would have complained about her sitting on his bed instead of her own, but by that point he was already used to Hanji using his bed as an emergency desk whenever she started the first step of her pre-test ritual, which consisted of putting all her notes, books and photocopies in some sort of order that only made sense to her, and which occupied the entirety of her part of the room, forcing her to sleep on the floor until she went on to step two: putting everything in piles. What he’d never get used to was to Hanji sitting on his bed with her shoes on.

He glared at her, prompting her to smile apologetically as she took off her sneakers. Levi sipped his coffee absently, marking Hanji’s turn to glare at him, the beginning of a scene they’d been performing since they’d started college.

“What?” he asked, following his part of the unwritten script. It was a simple conversation, a routine they’d accidentally created to have something that made sense, something to fall on when their nerves were on edge and their brains too clouded by the lack of sleep to focus properly on the world.

“I still don’t understand how you can drink that,” Hanji said, pointing at the cup in his hands. “It’s not coffee, it’s sweetened water with a pinch of coffee to give it the right color.” She made a face of disgust as he took another sip.

“I could say something similar about your choice of drink. That amount of coffee can’t be healthy. At the very least it will stain your teeth.”

“I brush them well.”

“No, you don’t. You just sort of pass the toothbrush over your teeth a couple of times and say you’re done.”

“Okay, okay, true. But I have good teeth!”

“Not for long, if you keep drinking coffee like that.”

“It could be worse. I could smoke.” Instead of laughing, the signal that marked the end of the dialogue, Hanji kept speaking, frowning in mock concern. “I really don’t get the four sugar cubes in the coffee. It’s the only thing I don’t get.” Levi raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue. “It’s just that…” she made a vague gesture at him with her hands, as if trying to put him into an imaginary box. “You look like you’d chain-smoke, get drunk before lunch and drink black coffee, and probably mug someone if you caught them alone at night. And it’s obvious why you don’t mug people, and I know you don’t smoke because you wouldn’t be able to get rid of the smell and because you like your teeth, even if you never smile, and I think the alcohol thing is because you can’t play well if your motor skills aren’t at its best, and I know your coffee’s always watered down because, again, your teeth, but why the sugar?” She seemed a bit out breath after speaking for so long.

“Can’t it be that I just like sugar?”

“But it makes no sense,” she leaned forward and pointed at him, “and you always make sense.”

“If I made any sense, I wouldn’t be friends with you,” he said before going back to the small pile of things he’d been setting on his desk. She sighed and, from the corner of his eye, Levi saw her walk around the room as she drank her coffee, sometimes leaning down to pick up paper balls that had rolled from her side of the room to his and straightening them. After the fourth paper ball, she downed the coffee and pulled out her cellphone, at which she tapped with increasing frustration for a minute.

“Damn, it’s acting weirdly again,” she muttered as she went to the window.

Even though, as far as Levi knew, she’d only fallen from a window that one time, seeing Hanji near windows sent immediate alarms to his brain, so as soon as she’d opened the one in their room he was giving a step in her direction.

“Sit down, Levi,” she told him, without turning around to look at him as she stuck her arm out and waved her cellphone in the air. “I’m just trying to get signal to send a message. Nothing can happen to me.”

Hanji kept getting more of her body out through the window in her desperate attempt to get signal, until she gave an annoyed huff and simply jumped outside.

He asked the heavens for patience before sticking his head out the window and looking at her, frantically waving her cell phone around.

“What are you trying to do?” he asked her as she started jumping on her spot.

“Getting signal, I told you.” She looked at him and smiled widely, the corners or her eyes crinkling and making her eyes smaller. “Don’t give me that look. I told you nothing could happen to me.”

“You could have tripped on your way out.”

“Our room’s at ground level, Levi. Worst case scenario, I would have gotten a bruise.”

He just gave her a disapproving look that quickly became questioning as she extended her hand to him.

“Come here.”

“Why?”

“Humor me.”

He reached for her hand and went outside. She let go of him as soon as his feet touched the ground, and if she had any thoughts about how he brushed her palm with his fingertips when she pulled her hand away, she didn’t let it show.

Hanji sprawled herself on the ground, one arm still waving her cell phone in the air. Levi crouched by her side and watched the focused look on her face as she stared at the screen.

“What are you doing?” he asked when she seemed to give up, letting her arm fall on her face, covering her eyes.

“I’m tired.”

“When did you last sleep for more than 3 hours?”

“I don’t know… three, four days ago?” Hanji replied warily after a moment of silence.

He sat back. He would have glared if she’d been able to see him. “You should go to sleep,” he said instead, matter-of-factly.

“I’m fine.”

“Hanji, you’re lying on the floor outside of our window.”

“At least I didn’t fall down a tree.”

“Hanji…”

“Okay, okay, I know. I just wanted something that worked. My phone works intermittently, that paper I’m writing doesn’t sound good, there’s a test coming on… the floor looked reliable.”

“Are you going to start lying on the floor whenever you get stressed?”

“If it works today, I might. Unless it rains. You’d kill me if I walked in covered in mud.”

“Not really. I’d have to get rid of the corpse.”

“Thank you!” She smiled briefly before becoming serious again.

She didn’t seem to be willing to move in the near future, so he started counting the illuminated windows on the building to pass the time, pretending to ignore that Hanji had turned to her side, facing him, and curled into herself.

“I called home earlier,” she muttered. “I called their cell phones too. They didn’t answer. I thought they might have called back and I missed it because I had no signal.”

He looked at her from the corner of his eye and saw her tracing patterns on the ground with a corner of her phone.

“I don’t know why it still bothers me.”

He didn’t have a single thing worth saying in his mind, but he tried anyway, since he didn’t have any interesting news clippings at hand.

“Want me to go throw paint at their house?”

“It’s my house too. Don’t make it ugly,” Hanji huffed.

“It’s a house in which you lived. It’s not yours.”

“It will be mine someday.”

“You’d rather apply for a job in Australia than go back to Maria.”

“Australia’s fascinating, Levi, it’-”

“You get the point, don’t pretend.”

“True…” Hanji lay on her back again. “I’ll probably sell it.”

“What will you do with the money?” He could see it in his mind, an apartment with a room full of books, and all the books that didn’t fit in the shelves stacked on the floor.

“I don’t know? There are decades left before that happens.”

Hanji closed her eyes, and Levi went back to counting windows. He was on his second re-counting when he felt his sleeve being tugged.

“Levi, are we the same people we were when we fought?”

“We’re older.”

“You get the point, don’t pretend.”

He looked down to find her staring at him. She was still holding onto his sleeve, her pointer finger under the fabric, in direct contact with his skin.

“…I feel a bit older. More tired, but that’s the lack of sleep. And you?”

“Me too. But I don’t think I’m much different from then. I know more things, though. And I care about more things. I want more things, too. I feel like… like ‘more’. The same as before, but ‘more’. It’s a bit terrifying.”

“I feel the same as then. Less annoyed, maybe. A bit calmer. The rest is…” he took a deep breath and made sure to keep looking at her face, “the rest is the same.”

She started tracing patterns on the ground again, with her fingers, and he imitated her, watching her hand purposely brush his at every chance she got, her face serious and pensive.

“The same?” she asked, her hand stopping and her eyes meeting his without blinking, like she could find the answer to her question if she simply studied his face enough time.

“The same.”

“Not even braver?”

“About other things, maybe.” He shrugged.

“Not this?”

He looked at their hands again.

“Reliable, right?” he asked, laying his hand flat on the ground.

“Reliable.” She raised a dirt-stained finger and marked a cross on the back of Levi’s hand. He turned it, leaving it palm-up, and Hanji let her hand rest in his. He curled his fingers around it. “Let’s try not to ruin it this time,” Hanji said, running her thumb over his wrist.

“Any idea what we’ll do if it works?”

She smiled at that and sat, turning to look at him with her eyes shining like they had when she’d declared them best friends, all those years ago. He’d never be sure about who leaned in first, or if they’d done it together, but he’d be able to remember that kissing Hanji tasted like coffee, that her lips and mouth had been soft, that they had been awkward and clumsy, like kids learning to kiss, that when they’d pulled apart they were still holding hands, their foreheads had touched and Hanji had whispered, “We could go see the world.”

“To visit all the nice places?” he answered without thinking, whispering as well, running his thumb over her knuckles.

“Would you go with me?” Hanji asked dubiously, staring at their joined hands.

“Yeah… yes.”

“Okay.” She beamed. “There’s years before that. What about the near future?”

He stopped to think. Maybe, later, they’d try to go on a date. Maybe, later, they could talk about an apartment with too many books and a piano, close enough to a supermarket that they wouldn’t have to live of take-out for the rest of their lives. Maybe, later, he would kiss her slowly, and then a bit more deeply, and then they’d try their best to make as little noise as possible, because they wouldn’t want to get interrupted by their neighbors yelling at them, and he liked that idea, except for the part where he’d have to get up afterwards to change the sheets (maybe that plan could wait until Hanji’s bed was free to be used again).

He stood up and offered his other hand to Hanji to help her stand up, and the warmth of her hands in his was enough for the moment.

“We’ll think of something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I finished writing this chapter, I made a mix with all the songs that were stuck in my head while I wrote. I made it as an apology for the delay in writing this chapter (I must have re-rewritten it at least 3 times...). [Here it is.](http://8tracks.com/veto-power-over-clocks/to-the-middle-of-nowhere)
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read, extra thanks to those that left kudos, and super special extra thanks to those who took the time to comment. It made my day seeing the "You've got kudos" emails, or finding a new comment.
> 
> Thank you for staying with me until the end of this story. My best wishes to all of you, I hope I get the chance to write something you'll like again.


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